Are You A Hero?
by l3utterflyEffect
Summary: Based off TheRealRaeWest's Heroswap AU, Beta'd by ToothpasteCanyon - He was not qualified to be a hero. At all. Really, he hadn't even known why he'd said he was. But he had, and now he was tangled up in a mess of saving the world and protecting this strange little telly-headed kid in the process. He didn't really want to be a Hero, but now he was. Well, he couldn't turn back now.
1. The Hook

"Hey…"

The voice was small, and it was just barely enough to stir the man from his dreams. That didn't really mean he was willing to be awake, though.

He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to go back to sleep.

"Hey, wake up!"

He felt cold metal tap his face, and flinched back.

Groggily, he raised his head, giving a quiet groan as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes.

When he looked up, he found himself faced with a young kid with a telly on their head, a red umbrella in hand, and a matching jacket standing on his desk and crumpling his papers under green rain boots.

"…Are you a hero?" They asked, and he startled slightly as the colorbars displayed on their screen twisted into something of a smile.

He took in a breath, and sighed, putting his head in his hands.

How the hell was he supposed to react to… _this?_ Some kid had broken into his office, and was now asking him if he wanted to be a hero.

She didn't look any older than ten, but still old enough to know better, _surely?_

"…well?" She prompted again, kneeling down to his level.

He pressed his hands together, closing his eyes for a moment. "…How did you get into my house?" He asked. "_Where are your parents?"_

"I got in through the window. And don't worry about it." She said, shrugging. "Are you gonna answer my question?"

Well. It didn't seem like he had much of a choice in the matter.

He sighed. "Well, I suppose…"

"Awesome!" She bounced back up excitedly. "Come on! No time to lose!" She exclaimed, hopping down from his desk and running to the door.

He looked in exasperation at the papers on his desk— crumpled, but at least they were likely salvageable…

"Are you coming or not?"

"Yes, yes." He said, rolling the seat back and standing. He walked over to the entryway, grabbing his coat off the coat-hanger. "So… who are you, again?"

"My name's RGB! Argie for short."

"Odd name, isn't it?" He asked, frowning as he pulled his coat on.

"It's 'cause of my colors, silly!" She said, pointing at her screen.

"Ah." He nodded, pulling his hat from the coat-hanger.

"...Are you ready?"

"I believe so."

"…No one you wanna say goodbye to?"

He was startled by the genuine worry in her voice.

He suddenly had a creeping feeling that, wherever he was going, it might be a while before he came back.

"…It'll be fine," He reassured, shaking the feeling. After all, children were wont to have active imaginations, and she was likely lost nonetheless. It wouldn't hurt to play along in the goal of getting her home.

Argie looked at him with what looked like a small frown, and he noticed that drops of blue were dripping from the TV screen, which was… strange.

Before he could ask about it, she grabbed his sleeve, tugging him along. "C'mon."

* * *

After Argie had pulled him through the skylight, he had begun to notice more strange things; She didn't seem to have limbs, for one. No neck, no legs, no arms, even though she still wore normal clothing as if she _did. _And he could swear the mouse-eared speakers on her head twitched occasionally.

He was, at this point, fairly certain he was dreaming.

He looked to her as she walked off. "…Er… why are we on the roof, again?"

"Because—" She tapped her umbrella against the chimney, and the smoke formed into a staircase. "—That's how we get to where we need to go."

_Yes, I'm definitely dreaming… And I've been watching Mary Poppins too much, evidently._

She crawled onto the stairs, before grinning. "C'mon! They're solid, don't worry."

He walked over, and carefully placed his foot on the first step.

It held.

He continued upwards, following Argie as she sprung up the stairs.

A thought suddenly hit him; one that, frighteningly enough, made quite a bit of sense— except one would think that he'd be going down instead.

"…Am I dead or something?"

"Of course not!" She hesitated for a brief moment, looking back with a frown. "Well, I don't… _think_ so?"

"…that's comforting," He mumbled sarcastically, adjusting his hat.

It took them a while to finally reach the clouds, but when they did, Argie rushed ahead, jumping into the clouds and landing with a _fwumpf._

He stepped onto the fluffy surface as she pulled herself up, shaking water vapor from her head. She ran towards what looked like…

"Is that a door? In the clouds?" He asked, bewildered.

"Yep!" She pulled a key from her pocket as he walked over. "Ya ready?"

"…Well, as ready as I can be, I suppose."

As she stuck the key into the lock, the eye pattern above it blinked open.

He watched incredulously as the door swung open into a blue-tone landscape, where there was a yellow path and the black-bark trees had glowing wisps instead of leaves on their branches.

She stepped through, and turned back. "Well? The door's not gonna stay open forever!"

"Right…"

He stepped through, looking around at the scenery—

And was immediately hit with exhaustion.

In fact, he was fairly sure that if he wasn't careful, he'd fall asleep on his feet.

_…This is why I shouldn't stay up all night doing work._

"You tired?" She asked.

"…how'd you know?"

"It's late here." She looked around. "The trees are sleeping already."

He wasn't even going to ask at this point. Sleeping trees… It made about as much sense as a telly-headed kid breaking into his home and leading him off to Neverland, or wherever they were.

Suddenly, he felt Argie grab onto his hand, tugging on his arm. "C'mon," She began, "we—"

He didn't wait for her to finish speaking; instead he ripped his hand away from her grasp, pulling it back towards himself.

Argie trailed off, looking back in bewilderment. "...Hero?"

"…sorry." He murmured, tugging on his gloves nervously. "I'm not really one for hand-holding."

"…'s fine. I should have asked anyway." She mumbled. "C'mon, we gotta get there before light."

The walk to— well, wherever they were going— was incredibly quiet.

Aside from the faint white noise that hung around Argie, the only thing breaking the silence was their footsteps.

It was incredibly unsettling.

After a while, she stopped, looking on at a small pool. "Alright. Should be okay to rest here."

As Argie flopped onto a pile of grass, he sat down to lean against a tree and pulled his hat over his face.

"…do you dream?" Argie asked.

"Mmm? Well, I suppose, but I don't usually remember… Is this important?"

"Mhm— but as long as you dream, we'll be safe."

He closed his eyes as he heard the click of a TV turning off, and then, static.

After a while, he managed to fall asleep.

* * *

When he opened his eyes again, he was extremely disoriented.

At first, he'd simply remembered last night's events, and hadn't been too worried.

But then, well, the utter bizarreness of what had happened came back too; it wasn't something that should be in any realm of possibility for him to _really be here._

Perhaps it was a silly metaphor, but… well, he wasn't so sure he was in Kansas anymore.

He looked to where Argie was still… well, 'asleep', if you could call it that. A snail was crawling across her screen, its shell, oddly enough, seeming to be marked with the static on her screen.

"You don't trust her?"

He jumped at the voice, looking over and seeing a butterfly perched on the plant next to him, two eyes expectant of an answer staring back at him.

"Well…" He looked back over to Argie. "…not really, no."

"That's good. It is wise to be wary of her… you are a wise Hero."

He looked at the butterfly cautiously. "You… do realize I'm not a hero, right?"

"Of course you are. You came here, didn't you?"

He shifted. "Yeah, but… I don't see what that has to do with any of this."

"…you will."

Somehow, that sounded oddly like a threat.

"I must go now. But we will see each other again," The butterfly said, before fluttering and beginning to fly off. "Be wise, Hero— be wise."

He watched it fly away for a moment— before the painful realization hit him that he'd just been talking to a _bug_, of all things.

He'd lost his mind. That was the only explanation anymore. There, surely, was no other possibility that was actually in the realm of believability.

_…alright, don't lose your head yet. _

He decided he'd ask about what was going on when Argie woke up. It wasn't likely that the little telly-head would have many answers, but it was at least a comforting thought.

In the meantime, a walk wouldn't hurt.


	2. Rushes

When Argie's screen flicked back on, she found that a snail trail of static had been painted across her screen.

She stretched out, yawning, before reaching up on top of her head and pulling a little snail off of her speakers and placing it on top of a leaf.

"…morning, Hero." She mumbled, rubbing the static off her face with her sleeve.

There wasn't a reply.

"Hero?" She repeated.

Rolling over, she saw the tree he had been at had been abandoned.

Argie pulled herself up, looking around.

She could hear humming, very faintly.

She wandered towards the sound, until she'd found Hero; he was leaning against one of the trees closer to the House of Glass.

She leaned around the tree. "Hero?"

He jumped, turning around. "Jesu— Don't sneak up on me like that, Argie!"

"Sorry…" She walked up next to him and sat down, looking up. "It's dangerous to walk off, you know."

"Well, it's not like you told me."

"Well, it's not like I thought I had to," She replied, crossing her arms. "Grumpus."

"I am not—!" He trailed off, tutting.

"Grumpus. Grumpus-grumps-a-lot."

"You're one to talk, slime-face." He scoffed good-naturedly, tossing a handkerchief towards her. "Use that."

"Oh, thank you! It is me, it is mine."

He gave her an odd look, but said no more.

Carefully, she dunked the handkerchief into the water, pulled it out and wiped her screen off with it.

"So… where are we?"

She looked up. "Huh?"

"Just… this place. It's clearly not somewhere that follows the same rules. There's no sun, the trees dream…"

As Hero listed things off, Argie's attention was torn away by a keening sound in the background.

As she turned her head towards the Pool of Tears, she saw black, twiggy creatures were emerging from the waters— _Fears._

She grabbed onto Hero's arm. "Hero, we have to get out of here."

"What?" He asked, frowning.

She pointed to the Pool of Tears, tugging on his sleeves again.

He froze up, staring out at the Fears. "What— what _are_ those things?!"

"Stop asking questions and _run!_" She exclaimed. She shoved him out of the way as a Fear charged them, trying to spear him with its scythe-like head. It thankfully impaled a tree rather than one of them, though.

She reached into her jacket, pulling out her last two nightmares and popped open the bottle before the Fear could wriggle its way out of the tree. She quickly ran out of the way of the corroding smog, looking back as the Fear shrieked.

"Do we have a plan?" Hero exclaimed.

"I think so?!" She replied as she rolled out of the way of one of the fears. "'s a dangerous one, but— It's a plan?!"

"Oh, great, that's _real comforting!_"

"DO _YOU_ HAVE ANY IDEAS!?" Argie snapped.

"I— No, I guess not—?"

"Then _shut up! _I know more about these things than you!"

"But _I'm_ the adult here!"

"OH MY GOD— can you stop arguing for _one second _and just cooperate?!"

"Fine! What's your game plan, kid genius?!"

"You lure them all into one place and I use a nightmare to kill them!"

"So I act as _bait?! That's_ the reason you broke into my home and took me to wherever the hell this is?!"

"No— that's not—!"

She cried out as she tripped, hitting the dirt, realizing a bit too late that letting herself get distracted in an argument wasn't the best idea.

"Argie—?!"

"'m fi…" She trailed off as she realized that the nightmare had slipped out of her hand, and scrambled to reach it— but she was dragged back by spidery claws. "'m not fine, I'm not fine— HERO—!"

A pain shot through her chest.

Everything faded to static.

_**W͘͝͠Ȩ̷͞͠͠ ̶S̷̢͏̵͟P̧͘͞Ļ̷I̡͘͜͝͡T̨͘͟**_҉͟

_**W̢͡Ę́ ̧S̸̶̡̢͡P̨̨̛͠͞L̢͘͢͞Í̶̡͜͠Ţ̛̀́́**_

_**W̷̴̶E͏̵͞ ̵̕͜͝S͏͟͞͞P͞͡L**_҉̵̕_**I̢͘T̸**_

When her hearing first returned from white noise, she heard a loud _thwack_.

"Y-you stay back!" She heard Hero exclaim.

She tried to pull herself up, but her arms collapsed beneath her. Her vision… still wasn't coming back.

"Argie— are you okay?"

"…Hero… the nightmare…!" She exclaimed.

"The…?"

"THE NIGHTMARE!" She shouted, pointing outwards towards the vial.

"The—"

She heard him cry out, and felt her heart sink.

There was a moment of silence before she heard the hiss of nightmares meeting fears, and screeches filled the air as she heard them dissipating away.

She let out a breath as she laid her head down on the ground. "Good job, Hero."

There wasn't a reply.

"…Hero?"

Argie lifted her head, despite it still buzzing with numb static, and her vision was just barely cleared enough for her to see Hero crumpling to his knees like paper, her umbrella dropped at his side.

Dragging herself up, she crawled to his side and pressed an ear to his chest.

…he was breathing.

Shallowly. But he was still alive, that was all that mattered.

Pulling herself to wobbly feet, she grabbed her umbrella and hooked it on the collar of his shirt, and picked his hat up off the ground and placed it on her head, before dragging him towards the staircase.

As she lugged him towards the House Of Glass (it wasn't made of glass anymore— but that was a story for another time), she began to realize that she should really have a better plan for this situation.

_Oh, well. Too little, too late._

As she finally reached the doorstep, she flopped against the wall, panting.

She dropped her umbrella, and knocked on the door. "MAGNUS! Are you there?"

"…_Argie?"_

"Let me in! I need help!"

"_Oh, good grief. Alright, hold on…"_

She heard the door unlock with a click, and the door swung open.

The prism-head looked down at the two of them, before shaking his head, sighing. "Come on," he said, picking up Hero. "Let's get you two inside."


	3. Dispersion

As Magnus went down the steps, Argie stopped to hang her umbrella on the coat rack, before quickly rushing down to catch up with him.

"I assume the fears got him?" He asked, looking over to them.

Argie turned Hero's hat in their invisible hands, nodding quietly. "…I should've done something—"

"Argie, It's hardly your fault. You couldn't have known," Magnus reassured, stopping to carefully place Hero on a chair. He paused for a moment, leaning forward to inspect the stab wound in his chest. "…straight through the heart, and still alive…? You pick some stubborn heroes."

"Yeah," Argie huffed, pulling their hood up over their head as Magnus went to the shelves lining the walls. "…Tell me 'bout it…"

They glanced over to Hero for a moment, before tapping chair leaned down, and she crawled up, carefully placing Hero's hat back on his head.

Magnus walked back over with a dream crystal in hand, and Argie dropped back down onto the floor, stepping back and holding their hoodie over their vents.

"Are your vents covered?" Magnus asked.

"Mhm."

"Good." He broke the crystal in half, and the glow of it dimmed as the dreams it contained spiraled down onto Hero's chest, sealing the crack.

As the dreams settled, Argie walked back over, peering over Gladys' armrest.

"Careful." Magnus placed his hand on their shoulder, pulling them back a little. "You don't want to get knocked out like last time, do you?"

"That was one time," they mumbled.

"Still, better safe than sorry," Magnus said. He walked over to the desk, tossing the now-broken crystal into a bin. "While you're here, do you need to buy any supplies?"

"OH! Yeah, that's actually probably a good idea…!" They glanced over, pulling their hoodie back down. "Do I still have that discount…?"

"Of course. I've had to up the prices, unfortunately; not many people want to go through fears, doubts, and Loch Rhymose just to buy some dreams. Still; you don't have to pay for the one I used on Hero."

"Really? Are you sure?"

"Of course I am; It was an emergency, wasn't it?"

"…thanks, Magnus."

"It's no trouble. Oh, we sidetracked off the topic, didn't we—? How many did you want?"

"Uhm… six nightmares, one bottle of light, and… two dreams. How much will that cost?"

"I'd say about… two and a half pints."

"…Oh. That's a lot."

"Do you need to—?"

"I can pay it!" They insisted, looking up. "I can pay."

"Well… if you say so." He went to the shelves, going to pick out the bottles.

Argie looked back to Hero, a small frown creeping into their colorbars as they stared at him. "…How long will it take?"

"Hm?"

"For Hero to…?"

"Oh, well… I'm afraid I couldn't tell you. All there is to do is wait."

"Oh." They looked down again, before shuffling over to the counter where Magnus was counting out the bottles and crawling on top of it.

"Here. Six nightmares, one light, and two dreams." He handed them the bottles, which Argie stashed in their pockets. Magnus grabbed a tube off of the counter, plugging it into Argie's screen.

They looked down at their boots, swinging their legs as they both sat in silence— save for the clinking of a teacup on its plate.

After a little while, Magnus put down the tea on the counter, looking to Argie. "It's the end of the world."

"I…I know, Magnus."

The reply was meant to be calm, but instead, it came out as a quiet, staticky whimper.

"Just because you know it, it doesn't mean you've accepted it. Why else would you be bringing a Hero?"

They went quiet.

Magnus put a hand on their shoulder. "We can't change any of this, Argie. This isn't something we can just fix—"

"But I can't just give up n' wait!" They cried out suddenly. "I gotta at least try— _something _has to fix this!"

A few moments passed in silence as Argie sunk back down into their coat— and finally, Magnus sighed.

"Argie… Saving the world isn't your responsibility. If you keep doing this, you'll end up hurting people. Yourself included."

Argie's 'ears' flicked back, and they looked up at the prism-head as he put a hand on their shoulder.

"Argie… you don't have to be a hero."

The silence that came after seemed to run on for an eternity.

Argie quietly looked back over to the chair, where Hero was uncomfortably curled up, arms wrapped around himself tightly.

Finally, after a few moments, they spoke up. "…Magnus?"

"…yes?"

"…do you have any blankets?"


End file.
